How did "Eloge de L'Amour" come about?

I had a vague idea that had a title. I had in mind something usually known as a so-called love story; my idea was to relate it counter-chronologically. Something of that idea remains. I thought of starting with the end, then say, four days earlier, then six months earlier, a year earlier, and so on, and conclude with the beginning. I injected some thriller elements later but it turned out disastrous, a nightmare. Then came the idea of dealing with couples.

And this is the three couples in the final film?

Yes, I thought of these three couples, but almost immediately I stumbled over the adults. I had started with a preposterous story and in the end I thought that I couldn't, one couldn't, describe an adult. Adults can only be dealt with in story form. In the street you don't say, there goes an adult. You say, there goes Paul and there goes Fabienne, or there goes a mad killer. You tell a story. With the others, young people and old people, there's no need to. The same goes for painting. When you have a painting of an adult, he's a card player. Only the novel can pull it off. "The Red and the Black", "The Brothers Karamazov" aren't just little storylets, like Julia Roberts movies are, they're real stories.

Other film makers would say just the opposite: "I have nothing to say about young or old people, but with an adult I have a story to tell"...

Yes, that's true, but out of principle I've always chosen to do what others aren't doing - no one does that, so it remains to be done, let's try it. If it's already being done, there's no point in me doing it as well.

Is there a certain turmoil in being adult?

Yes, you could write about the film saying that it's the story of someone who becomes an adult.

"Eloge de L'Amour" opens in UK cinemas on Friday 23rd November 2001.